Data-Over-Cable Service Interface Specifications (“DOCSIS”) has been established by cable television network operators to facilitate transporting data traffic, primarily internet traffic, over existing community antenna television (“CATV”) networks. In addition to transporting data traffic as well as television content signals over a CATV network, multiple services operators (“MSO”) also use their CATV network infrastructure for carrying voice, video on demand (“VoD”) and video conferencing traffic signals, among other types.
In transporting downstream multimedia content, as well as data, an upstream message, or messages, is/are typically sent to request the content and to set up a service flow to deliver the content. In addition to downstream multimedia content, such as video, voice traffic also uses message signaling to set up service flows for the upstream and downstream directions.
These signals are typically sent over a fiber network to a location, sometimes referred to as a node, near an end user, and from the node to a broadband user's device via a coaxial cable. Such an arrangement is known in the art as a hybrid fiber coaxial network (“HFC”). To illustrate, FIG. 1 shows a conventional system 2 for communicating between a cable modem termination system (“CMTS”) 4 at a head end and a cable modem (“CM”) 6 at a user location, such as a home or office. The CMTS 4 and cable modem communicate over hybrid fiber coaxial network 8. When a user requests information, for example from Internet 10, Internet protocol (“IP”) packets are received from the Internet at physical layer interface (“PHY”) 12 and routing/switching functionality is provided by routing/switching processor 14. From processor 14, a DOCSIS header is added and radio frequency (“RF”) processing takes place at media access control (“MAC”) processor 16 before being transmitted onto HFC 8 toward cable modem 6. It will be appreciated that the MAC and radio circuitry are typically separate devices/circuits, but are combined into one block in the figure for simplicity.
At cable modem 6, the packet is received at CM MAC processor 18, which performs RF functionality as well as DOCSIS processing. IP processing takes place at routing/switching processor 20, and the packet is forwarded to Ethernet interface 22 for final transport to a customer premise equipment (“CPE”) user device, such as, for example, a computer, a television or a set top box.
A shown in FIG. 1, only one downstream channel between CMTS 4 and CM 6 is used because only one MAC processor is used at each. A channel is typically a 6 MHz RF channel as known in the art. Although an HFC channel between a CMTS and a CM provides an increase in performance over using a dial-up connection, customers are demanding more and content, thus requiring even more bandwidth than a single channel over an HFC can accommodate. Thus, there is a need in the art for a method and system for increasing bandwidth over the bandwidth that is provided by a single HFC network channel, while using as much currently available components as possible.